Yes, Kids Can Learn From Tv

Thirty years ago, television screens in schools across Broward County flickered to life with the first black and white images beamed from a broadcast facility in Davie.

The pictures were from Instructional Television, also known as ITV. Decades later, the Broward School Board-funded project is still going strong.

Administrators celebrated the station's 30th anniversary on Jan. 29 by airing a retrospective that featured an assortment of past and present programming.

They also have been marking the milestone by preparing to bring ITV into the future with a new name and the latest technology.

The station recently changed its call letters to BECON, short for Broward Education Communications Network. The switch was made to indicate the center's broadening horizons, said Joan P. McCabe, coordinator.

``We wanted a name that reflects our new image,'' she said. ``People tend to think of instructional television as a teacher standing in front of a blackboard. We're much more than that.''

Since going on the air in Jan. 29, 1968, ITV/BECON has become one of the oldest instructional television centers in the nation.

Starting with six shows, its list of programs has since grown to 89 different series, broadcast in color. Topics are aimed at kindergartners through adults. Subjects run from a live call-in show where kids can get homework assistance to a pretaped forum on public affairs and help for people preparing to take the GED high school equivalency exam.

The programs reach thousands of viewers in classrooms and private homes. Students receive the transmissions on one of four channels available in all public schools. Residents can tune in via their cable boxes.

About one-fourth of the series are produced locally inside the original ITV broadcast center, 6600 SW Nova Drive, Davie. The rest are leased from various instructional television stations around the United States, McCabe said.

Those same broadcast centers pick up BECON's homegrown shows. A few are also seen overseas, including a phonics series for third and fourth graders called Planet Pylon.

Iris Kauffman created and had a starring role in the Pylon series, which debuted 10 years ago. Her 23 15-minute episodes are continuously re-run around the globe. Among the viewers are children at a U.S. military installation in Guam.

``I've been with ITV for 13 years and watched it evolve from supporting needs on a local level to reaching people all over the world,'' Kauffman said.

The educational programs have given teachers here and elsewhere another voice, she said.

Her opinion echoes BECON supporters, who say their function is to be a resource, not a replacement.

``We're designed to be used in the classroom the same way an educator would use a textbook or a globe,'' McCabe said.

And BECON is always searching for more ways to expand on that vision, said Phyllis Klenetsky, broadcast center director.

One of the station's innovations is its two-way interactive television. The concept was kicked off last year and is operational in 30 schools.

It enables teachers to instruct their own students, as well as those at a second site elsewhere in the county. The parties can see and talk to each other by using tiny cameras and microphones mounted on their video screens, McCabe said.

``Eventually, we want to have every school participating,'' Klenetsky said.

Other plans on the horizon for BECON include increasing the number of in-school channels from four to eight and developing new series, such as helping students get ready to take advanced placement exams, Klenetsky said.

Margaret Moran, a 39-year-old mother of three, said she can't believe how far-reaching BECON has become since she was a child.

Moran, of North Lauderdale, has a special attachment to the broadcast center. It was 30 years ago when the facility taped a play performed by her fourth grade class at North Side Elementary in Fort Lauderdale.

``We were dressed up to represent different countries,'' said Moran, who was a little Dutch girl in the production. ``I remember being awestruck by the cameras.''

Moran credits ITV as having quite a big impact on her learning.

``We went on these electronic field trips,'' she said. ``I discovered places that I never knew existed and it piqued my interest to open up books and learn more.''

Brandon Graham, 18, is benefitting from BECON too. A sports anchor on Broward Teen News, one of the facility's locally produced series, he credits the center with preparing him for college and a career in communications.

``It's given me a better understanding of what's going to be expected of me after I graduate,'' said Graham, a senior at Hollywood Hills High School.